The A&O Shearman partner believes "prevention is better than cure"
For Jackson Allen, the profession’s biggest challenges are caused by external pressures in the areas of tech and geopolitics. Agility and flexibility are necessary to address these challenges in the present with an eye on the future, he says.
In the second part of this interview, the A&O Shearman partner discusses why prevention is better than cure when it comes to mental health and anticipating rock band Metallica’s first Australia tour in a dozen years.
What should the profession focus more on?
I think mental health continues to be an area that needs more attention from the profession. There is growing awareness of its importance, but it seems to be more focused on crisis intervention – that is, when things are bad enough that they become obvious. While this is obviously vitally important, prevention is better than cure, and there is a lot more work that can be done in relation to creating sustainable ways of working.
What challenges are particularly pressing in the country’s legal industry?
Perhaps it’s a view that comes from working at a global firm, but it does seem that the key challenges to Australia’s legal profession are coming from external pressures – in the form of advancements in tech (particularly GenAI) and in geopolitics (which impacts on our clients, and so the work being done, and also directly on law firms). From what I can tell, the answer to these challenges (and many others) is not to try and find a single answer – but rather to train ourselves to be flexible and agile in implementing the right practices for today, while keeping a constant watch on tomorrow.
What are your thoughts on new technology and its impact on the legal profession?
A lot of what people refer to as ‘new’ in the tech space (things like GenAI), really isn’t that new. It’s past the early adopters and is becoming widely used. I think the capabilities and the pace of change we are seeing in technology will start to create a ‘two speed’ profession – those that are constantly curious, learning and adopting new use cases for tech and those doing things in a more traditional manner. There will always be those (both clients and practitioners) that prefer the latter, but those that are using the tech will benefit from more and more noticeable advances in efficiency and collaboration.
What are you looking forward to the most in the coming year?
Getting stuck into the partner role and working to find the opportunities in the ‘interesting times’ we live in, camping trips with my family, and Metallica touring Australia for the first time in 12 years.
